


Snowbound

by rukafais



Category: Fallen London|Echo Bazaar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 05:06:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things in the Neath that are more than they seem; thus, it is almost inevitable that the same applies to people. Even influential people. Especially influential people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowbound

Fallen London sits in the heart of a colossal cavern; it only makes sense that when the cold sets in, when winter - not 'false-winter', no, not when the winds howl and the snow, or what passes for snow in the Neath, piles high on doorsteps and rooftops - descends upon the city, it descends with wrath. Winter rules the Neath, when it comes, and some might say the spires of the Bazaar are its eyrie - or its claws.

The days are cold, but the nights are even colder, and the streets are mostly deserted in the early hours of the morning.

No watchful eye tracks the progress of the cloaked figure, moving hastily enough to scatter lacre in its wake, towards the Shuttered Palace; no keen ear is there to hear the muffled cursing as it lets itself in through a half-hidden side gate smothered by fungal branches. In the best narrative traditions of all those who attempt to quiet their movements while struggling with a task, the cracking and snapping as the figure is assaulted by a variety of fungal blooms lingers in the street for no small amount of time.

No servant tries to hinder the cloaked figure's progress through the silent halls; to try to stop a Master of the Bazaar is folly, at best.

They step aside for it.

\-------

He is cold, despite his many cloaks, and when he reaches the Empress' chambers he is in no mood to talk. He and the Traitor Empress eye each other for a few seconds before he begins to speak, his high-pitched voice irritable.

"Control yourself," he says, almost inching into demanding. "Rather - control your offspring. She dabbles in things that are illegal, and for good reason, and are under my jurisdiction." Nobody makes demands of the Traitor Empress. Nobody dares. Nobody who isn't a Master, anyway.

Her face is impassive, but from what he can divine of her intentions in that careful blankness is: _Why? Why not indulge her only born child - no - her only properly born child?_ He doesn't understand it - well, perhaps he does. Familial love, after all. But his blue eyes narrow to slits, and his voice comes out as nothing more than a breath, a sudden and sinister change of tone.

"Watch her, then. Your daughter does not have her _father'_ s eyes."

He is gone, out of the muted chambers and into the fog once more, before he can be pressed. But she knows -and he _knows_ she knows - that there is a price that is known.

And a price that is not.


End file.
